Battery load, coolant strength, tire depth, wiper condition, and the kit worth riding along from Thanksgiving to Easter. Twenty below does not negotiate.
Twenty below does not negotiate, and the vehicles that struggle in January usually announced it in October. These are the four checks that decide whether winter is an inconvenience or an emergency, in the order they strand people.
Cold cuts a battery's strength roughly in half right when the engine needs the most. A battery past three years old deserves a proper load test against its rating, because the voltage can look fine right up until the first single digit morning. The test takes minutes.
Coolant protects to a temperature only when it is mixed at the right strength, and years of topping off with water quietly thin it out. The strength gets measured, and while it is being checked, so does the heater, because low coolant is the most common reason a cab heats slowly in January.
Winter grip lives in the tread depth, and pressure drops about one pound for every ten degrees the temperature falls, so the tires that were fine in September are low by Thanksgiving. If you run dedicated winter tires, the swap is worth booking before the first storm rather than after it.
Summer washer fluid freezes in the lines, and a smeared windshield at dusk on a gravel shoulder is a genuinely dangerous place to discover it. New blades and winter rated fluid are the cheapest safety upgrade on this page.
Worth carrying from Thanksgiving to Easter, and checking once when you print this:
Call (605) 339-9717 and describe it in your own words. A minute on the phone usually finds the next step, and most estimates go out the same business day.
